NEW MARKET --— Southmont softball has found its groove offensively over the last week. Chelsea Veatch and Macie Shirk on Saturday continued to lead the Mountie offense as the Mounties powered past county rival North Montgomery 13-3 in six innings on Saturday. Shirk blasted two home runs and recorded an inside the park home run off of a Charger error. Veatch added another home-run and also recorded an inside the parker.
The Mounties scored three runs in each of the first two innings and ended the game with a five spot in the sixth to seal the win.
“Today out top four hitters really carried us,” Southmont coach Dan Taylor said. “I have to give Piper Ramey a lot of credit. She shut down the bottom of lineup and some of the girls who had been hitting well. We hadn’t seen her before but eventually our power of our top hitters prevailed and took over the game.
With another home-run filled game for the Mounties, they added to their Sagamore Conference lead with the long ball as they now have 12 on the season. With her hot hitting Veatch has bumped up her batting average to .609 on the season which is good for second in the conference.
Shirk on the mound was just as dominant as she pitched a complete game striking out 12 and giving up just two hits. Taylor praised his ace pitcher who needed no motivation to get ready for a county matchup.
“She was really ready to go today,” Taylor said. “She threw hard and pitched really well. I wish we could’ve given her some better defense as she probably could’ve thrown a shutout if we fielded better. You could tell that Macie really wanted to win this game and she competed for us.”
The Chargers (1-8, 0-5 SAC) scored a single run in the third and added two more in the sixth. Cascie Keller drove in a pair for North Montgomery. Ramey threw six and two-thirds innings for the Chargers and struck out 10 while giving up eight earned runs. Charger coach Rob Earley as Taylor did credited Ramey for performance.
“She’s just a work horse,” Earley said of Ramey. Besides one hitter in their lineup, I thought she pitched as well as she could have. I always keep asking if she’s good to keep going because I know she doesn’t want to come out of a game.”
North Montgomery will be back in action on Monday as they travel to take on North Putnam.
The Mounties improve to 5-2 (3-2 SAC) on the season and they see their winning streak now at four games. The week ahead for the Mounties will be a busy one with five games. The first will be Monday on the road against Covington followed by a match ups with their other county rival in Crawfordsville on Tuesday and Wednesday. They’ll wrap up the week on Saturday with a double-header at Fountain Central.
“We’re going to just try and keep this going and get on a run,” Taylor said. “We’ll have to be good in all three aspects of the game and if we do that we should be ok. I think playing as much as we are I think that will be good for us to get in a groove.”
